Make a Necklace from Shoe Lace Charms

Before: Shoe charms

My daughter saw these shoe lace charms and said they remind her of the "foot prints of love." Today is project seven of our V-Day series and we decided to make a simple necklace using shoe lace charms and our imitation leather.

Tomorrow is the big day. Valentine's Day in our house is all about crafts and chocolate. We reject the commercial aspects of the holiday, but love a theme for making stuff. And, of course, we love chocolate. And ice cream.

When my kids were little, I loved working with them to make Valentine's Day cards for each of the kids in the class and all their teachers ... today its all about wearing our hand crafted jewelry and eating chocolate...and reminding each other (and our friends) how much we love and appreciate one another.

Materials
2 shoe charms
2mm leather, imitation leather, satin or other stringing material
Findings (end caps and clasp)
Glue (optional)

After: Footprints of love by GeltDesigns.com

Step 1
Select the charms.

Step 2
Feed the charms on the stringing material and attach findings.

You can glue the charms to hold them in a particular position or allow the charms to dangle and clang.

Related Tutorials
Make Earrings from Shoe Charms 
Make Heart Earrings from Copper Staples 
Make a Beer Bottle into a Heart Pin 
Make "Kiss Me" Heart Earrings 
Make a Valentine's Day Pendant from a Scrabble® Tile 
Make a "True Love" Bracelet from Scrabble® Tiles 
Make a Valentine's Day Pendant from a Copper Washer
GeltDesigns Tutorials by Topic
NJAD Index (Days 1 to 60) by Type of Jewelry
NJAD Index (Days 1 to 60) by Type of Found Object  

Further Reading 
"500 Plastic Jewelry Designs: A Groundbreaking Survey of A Modern Material (500 Series)"; Lark; 2009.
"500 Pendants & Lockets: Contemporary Interpretations of Classic Adornments (500 Series)"; Lark; 2008.
"500 Necklaces: Contemporary Interpretations of a Timeless Form (500 Series)"; Lark; 2006.

Day 85  Month 4. Jewelry from Found Objects.  $ spent to date: 0
Found materials: shoe lace charms
New Jewelry a Day.

Have a great week!

Make Heart Earrings from Copper Staples

Before: Copper staples

Today's project is completely the result of the creative genius of my wonderful daughter. When I was opening a package that came from UPS the other day, my daughter noticed that the staples holding the box together were copper. Score! She immediately got out the wire wrapping tools and started designing projects that could reuse and repurpose the copper staples. Such a good idea!

After: Copper Hearts by GeltDesigns.com

After playing with the found wire for a while, we decided to shape two of the staples into hearts to use as charms for earrings in our V-Day series. Seriously, would you guess these were staples otherwise destined for the garbage (and by extension the landfill)?

Materials
2 copper staples
Beadalon 20-gauge magenta Artistic Wire 

Gather your tools

Tools
Eurotool wire looping pliers
Chain nose pliers
Eurotool Wrap n' Tap pliers
Grobet No 2 half-round file
Lortone tumbler

Step 1
File the edges of the staples until they have no sharp edges and are jewelry smooth.

Form staple into circle

Step 2
Form the staple into a circle using the Wrap n Tap pliers or a mandrel.

Step 3
Form the circle into a heart using the wire looping pliers or round nose pliers. File again, as needed.

Step 4
Repeat to create second, matching heart.

Step 5
Make ear wires and attach the ear wires to the hearts.

These ear wires were leftover from another project where we either made extras and never used them or made these and decided we did not like the shape or color for the project and made something else instead.

Step 6
Place in tumbler to burnish and harden metal.

Related Tutorials
How to Make "Fish Hook" Ear Wires
How to Make an Ear Wire Jig

How to Straighten Wire

How to Smooth Sharp Wire Edges
How to Measure Wire
How to Use a Wire Gauge
GeltDesigns Tutorials by Topic
NJAD Index (Days 1 to 60) by Type of Jewelry
NJAD Index (Days 1 to 60) by Type of Found Object  

Further Reading 
"Complete Metalsmith: Professional Edition";  Tim McCreight; 2004.
"Jewelry: Fundamentals of Metalsmithing (Jewelry Crafts)"; Tim McCreight; 1997.

Day 84  Month 4. Jewelry from Found Objects.  $ spent to date: 0
Found materials: copper staples
New Jewelry a Day.

Enjoy your weekend.

Make a Beer Bottle into a Heart Pin

Before: Glass bottle

I miss the days when my three kids and I made Valentine's to hand out in school. Alas, they have outgrown the in-school, everybody-in-the-class Valentine exchange ... but nobody is ever to old for the annual V-day chocolate binge.  None of us can wait. Yum.

Today is Friday and project five of NJAD Valentine's Day week. We went back to our stash of bottles, broke a beer bottle into glass frit and fused it to create a nifty heart shaped pin. With so many, V-Day inspired jewelry, my daughter and I are going to have to negotiate who gets to wear what.

Have a great weekend.

After: Heart pin by GeltDesigns.com

Materials
Glass bottle
1-inch pin finding
Etching cream
Rubber gloves

Tools
Eye goggles Dust mask HammerKiln safe bisque mold
Kiln wash/ shelf primer
Glass fusing kiln
Welding goggles


Step 1
Clean the bottle.

Break bottle into frit

Step 2
Put on eye goggles and a dust mask to protect your eyes and lungs from glass dust and flying, broken shards of glass. Put the glass bottle into a plastic bag and wrap a towel around the bag to reduce the risk of flying shards of glass. Use a hammer to break the glass bottle into very small pieces. Warm glass artists call small pieces of broken glass frit.

We used a Carlsbad beer bottle. Carlsbad makes beer bottles in a really, really nice shade of green and the color withstands heat in the kiln.  

Put frit in heart mold

Step 3
Place the glass frit into a heart shaped mold prepared with kiln wash.


Step 4
Place the mold into the kiln. I based my firing schedule on experience from fusing the pendant from a beer bottle on January 4. I used a small top loading kiln, so I could watch the glass closely and see when the glass melted. For this project, I raised the kiln to 1500 degrees F and held it for about six minutes.

Note: Always put your kiln on a fire safe work surface and wear protective eye goggles (such as those used for welding or lampwork) when looking into a hot kiln.

Step 5
Anneal the glass. Lower the kiln to the annealing temperature(about 960 degrees F) and hold the kiln at that temperature for 10 minutes to anneal the glass.

Step 6
Allow the glass to cool to room temperature. Remove the glass from the kiln and wash off any kiln wash on the glass.

Step 7
Etch the glass. Put on rubber gloves and etch the glass with etching cream.

We etched the glass to give it a mat finish so that the findings were not visible through the pin.

Glue on pin back

Step 8
Glue the pin back finding to the back of the etched, heart shaped glass.

Related Tutorials
How to Make a Pin Back
Make Glass & Copper Earrings
Make a Pendant from a Bottle
Turn a Glass Jar into a Pendant
Make a Glass & Knotted Leather Necklace
Make a Glass & Brass Link Bracelet
Make Recycled Glass & Sterling Silver Earrings
Make a Kiln Formed Bracelet
Make a Glass Charm Necklace
NJAD Index (Days 1 to 60) by Type of Jewelry
NJAD Index (Days 1 to 60) by Type of Found Object 

Day 83.  Month 4. Jewelry from Found Objects.  $ spent to date: 0
Found materials: Carlsbad glass beer bottle
New Jewelry a Day.

Make "Kiss Me" Heart Earrings

Before: scrap book hearts

Today is project four of NJAD Valentine's Day week. We had some plastic hearts that were leftover from a scrap booking project. We decided the two pink "Kiss Me" hearts were perfect to make into post earrings.


Materials
2 plastic hearts
2 surgical steel post earring findings with 4mm pad

After: Earrings by GeltDesigns.com

2 surgical steel ear nuts
3M wet/dry sandpaper

E6000 or glue of your choice
Black Sharpie marker


Step 1
Select the hearts you want to use.

Step 2
Color the lettering with the black Sharpie or marker of your choice.

Step 3
Sand the pad of the post to rough up the metal and make the glue stick better. Sand the plastic where you plan to glue the pad.

Glue on earring post

Step 4
Glue the earring post to the back of the heart. Allow the glue to dry overnight or according to manufacturer's instructions.


Related Tutorials 
Make a Valentine's Day Pendant from a Scrabble® Tile
Make a "True Love" Bracelet from Scrabble® Tiles
Make a Valentine's Day Pendant from a Copper Washer and Scrap Sterling
Make a Heart Pin from a Glass Pebble
Make Button Earrings

Further Reading
"500 Earrings: New Directions in Contemporary Jewelry (500 Series)"; Lark; 2007.

Day 82.  Month 4. Jewelry from Found Objects.  $ spent to date: 0
Found materials: scrap booking supplies
New Jewelry a Day.

Make a Valentine's Day Pendant from a Scrabble® Tile

Today is project three of our get ready for Valentine's Day count down. We had so much fun playing with Scrabble® tiles yesterday that we decided to make a pendant to coordinate with yesterday's bracelet. 

Before: Paper from catalog

Every year around Christmas time we are inundated with catalogs from department stores. The folks on Madison Avenue spend a LOT of money trying to make the paper images as appealing as possible....and that makes catalogs a great source for attractive paper to use for decoupage.


Materials
Scrabble®  letter
Scrap paper
Glue stick
Black Sharpie Marker
Mod Podge
Transparent embossing powder
18-gauge round brass wire

Tools 
Automatic center punch
Drill
Size 41 bit
Xacto knife
Heat gun

Round nose pliers
Chain nose pliers

Pick a tile

Step 1
Select a Scrabble® tile. Mark the top center of the Scrabble® tils with an automatic center punch and then drill a holes in the tile for the finding.

Step 2
Select some attractive paper or fabric. We used some paper cut from a Bloomingdales catalog sent to us in the mail, but any attractive paper or fabric will do.

Step 3
Glue the paper to the tile and cut off the excess paper using an Xacto knife or scissors. My daughter then used a black Sharpie to draw a design on the paper.

Step 4
Coat the paper with a layer of Mod Podge. Sprinkle the transparent embossing powder on the glue. Tap off the excess embossing powder. Use a heat gun to heat the embossing powder until it melts. The embossing powder will protect the paper and make the pendant water resistant but not necessarily water proof. Set the pendant aside and allow the embossing powder to cool to room temperature.

After: Pedant by GeltDesigns.com

Step 5
Make the pendant bail from 18-gauge round brass wire and attach the bail to the tile. Slide a neck ring chain through the bail to wear the pendant.

Related Tutorials
Make a Bracelet from Scrabble® Tiles
Make a Pendant Bail
How to Drill
How to Use a Drill Press for Jewelry Making
How to Use a Dremel to Make Jewelry
How to Use a Flex Shaft to Make Jewelry

Further Reading
"500 Pendants & Lockets: Contemporary Interpretations of Classic Adornments (500 Series)"; Lark; 2008.
  
Day 81.  Month 4. Jewelry from Found Objects.  $ spent to date: 0
Found materials: scrap paper, Scrabble® tile
New Jewelry a Day.